It won’t be a tipping point tonight, but I’m anxiously watching for the final tally out of Missouri and hoping for a McCain win. That hoary factoid about the Show Me state’s prescience in voting for the presidential victor has always irritated me, and I’m rooting for its demise.

Across the U.S. capital, Democrats celebrated after Obama’s victory. At the Mayflower Hotel blocks from the White House, Democrats danced to the Nellie song “Hot in Herre.” Drivers honked. People on the sidewalks chanted “Obama” and “We did it.”

It’s striking how many people seem to have reacted to McCain’s impressive concession speech this way: “Where was THAT guy all year?” It was and now will remain forever more a hallmark of the McCain career that he’s at his best when he’s been knocked back. True to form to the end.

Katherine Rizzo is right: McCain’s concession speech was the single best speech he gave in the entire campaign. If only that kind of thought had gone into rejecting Joe the Plumber for a more noble political rhetoric.

Obama’s biggest challenge going forward will be managing expectations. Polling shows that voters see the country and the economy basically at the lowest of lows. But polls also show that a lot of these voters — especially the younger ones — are incredibly optimistic.

Obama’s election is a reflection of a changing society. Of course, he won in a year when the political playing field enormously favored the Democrat. But he became the nominee by beating Hillary Clinton, an icon of his party.

One thing often overlooked in the last hours of a campaign is that the candidates are people. And now that McCain has effectively lost the presidency, it won’t just touch him politically — the emotional pain is unavoidable as well.

I suspect the Dole loss will be played solely as a story about the “Godless” ad she ran about her opponent. But most losses are more complicated than can be explained by one ad. Sununu’s loss is a real blow to the GOP.

Remember the 2004 Democratic convention, when Obama urged Americans to heal the red-state/blue-state divide? (“We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.”) Now, we can begin to look at whether his campaign accomplished that purpose.

On C-SPAN, a simulcast of a WTVD-TV broadcast shows defeated Sen. Dole almost literally laughing through the tears. She seems to be delivering a final version of her stump speech, jokes and all. Then she turns serious and says she’s not proud of the tone her race acquired.

Chalk one up for the ghost of Jack Abramoff. A House race in Florida was called for challenger Suzanne Kosmos over Republican Rep. Tom Feeney, who once took a Scotland golf trip with the now-imprisoned superlobbyist.

The struggle to succeed Obama in the Senate started before the vote-counting even began. A news release from Chicago Rep. Danny Davis thanks the supporters who are promoting him to fill the unexpired term.

The problem for Republicans isn’t just that Sen. Elizabeth Dole lost in North Carolina but how early it was called and how wide the margin seems to be. Bad news for the GOP in the presidential vote there, and in the battle to keep Democrats below 60 seats in the Senate.